The City of Saskatoon is taking a closer look at its 27-year-old brand.
The city’s 2017 preliminary budget proposes spending $70,000 to take a look at how the city uses its brand and logo.
The logo, which features a stylized letter S made to look like a bend in the South Saskatchewan River, has been around since 1989, but was updated in 2002. The original logo was coloured yellow, but then switched so green became the dominate colour.
The project being considered for the 2017 budget does not include a redesign of the logo, although that could be considered once the strategy is complete, according to a report heading to Wednesday’s budget deliberations.
The report says the effort is intended to more clearly identify communication by the city and to make sure residents are aware of which services are provided by the city.
“Every organization brands itself,” David Williams, a marketing professor at the University of Saskatchewan’s Edwards School of Business, said in an interview last week. “SaskPower is rebranding. The (Saskatoon) airport just rebranded.”
Williams said brands are important and the amount of money being spent on this project is tiny compared to the rest of the city’s billion-dollar budget.
The city’s logo appears on infrastructure, vehicles, business cards, uniforms, signs, websites and advertisements.
The budget report pointed to a 2008 rebranding project by the City of Regina that cost $400,000.
“It’s a big identifier for the city,” Williams said. “It links so many things together. You’re going to get short-term critics no matter how much you pay for promotion.”
Williams said good brands and logos will last.
He pointed to the New York’s “I love NY” brand with a red heart as the gold standard for city logos/slogans.
As for Saskatoon’s other, less official brand, Saskatoon Shines, Williams said it might be time for a rethink after 16 years.
A group of 22 private and public groups banded together in 2001 to come up with the stylized sun logo that greets residents and visitors upon entry into the city at various locations.
The Saskatoon Shines logo includes beadwork and colours that reflect First Nations and Metis culture and the molecular work performed at the Canadian Light Source synchrotron.
“Is it time to rebrand? Maybe,” Williams said. “”It’s probably time to take a look at it.”
The city’s project does not include examining Saskatoon Shines.
Todd Brandt, president and chief executive officer of Tourism Saskatoon, said he sees no reason to reconsider Saskatoon Shines. Both the city and Tourism Saskatoon were among the organizations that established the marketing strategy.
The city’s logo/slogan appears on about $800,000 worth of infrastructure, Brandt noted.
“The essence of a good city brand is that it’s enduring,” Brandt said in an interview last week. “It’s an extremely expensive project to start meddling with that or changing it too frequently.”
Saskatoon Shines replaced a number of short-lived, less effective slogans like “Saskatoon is magic,” “Diamond in denim country” and POW (potash, oil, wheat) City, Brandt pointed out.
ptank@postmedia.com
twitter.com/thinktankSK
Related
Extra $1.2M lowers property tax hike
End of the road in 2017 for special street repair levy
Clark says budget reflects priorities he heard during election
This article was originally written in: http://thestarphoenix.com/news/local-news/city-proposes-spending-70000-on-brand-promotion. You can use, free of charge, when Creative Commons (CC) license appears in article source. CC is an American non-profit organization devoted to expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. If you detect that is not authorized, please contact with us to delete.